Voodoo Never Dies

Krugman:

You might think that there was a defensible economic case for the obsession with cutting taxes on the rich. That is, you might think that if you’d spent the past 20 years in a cave (or a conservative think tank). Otherwise, you’d be aware that tax-cut enthusiasts have a remarkable track record: They’ve been wrong about everything, year after year.

Some readers may remember the forecasts of economic doom back in 1993, when Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate. What happened instead was a sustained boom, surpassing the Reagan years by every measure.

Undaunted, the same people predicted great things as a result of George W. Bush’s tax cuts. What happened instead was a sluggish recovery followed by a catastrophic economic crash.

More here.

We've been doing this, cutting taxes for the rich and claiming it will grow the economy, on and off, mostly on, for over thirty years. Economists have had plenty of time to study the effects, which, of course, they've done. So we've understood this for a long time now: throwing money at the rich does nothing but cause deficits and impoverish. Well, okay, it also makes the rich even richer. At everyone else's expense. It's very bad economics. There can be no doubt.

Thus, when Republicans, and often even corporate toady Democrats, of which there are many, suggest that it's good for the economy to cut taxes for the rich, they're either stupid or lying.

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